Bill Mounce

For an Informed Love of God

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Sunday, April 21, 2013

Unable or Not Allowed to Speak? (2 Cor 12:4)

In talking about his ecstatic experience, Paul says that this “man” (i.e., himself most likely) “was caught up into paradise and heard unspeakable (ἄρρητα) words that a person may (ἐξὸν) not utter.

There are two ambiguities in this verse. (1) ἄρρητος can mean “that cannot be expressed, since it is beyond human powers, inexpressible” (BDAG), or “of someth. that must not be expressed, since it is holy, not to be spoken” (BDAG). It is a NT hapax

(2) ἔξεστιν likewise can mean “to be authorized for the doing of someth., it is right, is authorized, is permitted, is proper,” or, “to be within the range of possibility, it is possible.

So was Paul unable to express what he saw, or was he not permitted to tell?

The commentaries and translations are all pretty convinced it means “impermissible,” that God had forbidden Paul to describe what he saw. Some compare it to the injunction in the Mysteries that the initiate was forbidden to speak of the cultic practices, but that is hardly a parallel here since Christianity is not a Mystery religion and Paul is not talking about initiation. Others refer to the “divine passive,” but ἐξὸν is active

It is true that BDAG only lists one reference to ἔξεστιν meaning “possible”: Acts 2:29. “Fellow Israelites, I can (ἐξὸν) tell you confidently that the patriarch David died and was buried, and his tomb is here to this day” (NIV). But one reference is one reference

For some reason I can’t pinpoint, I find myself wondering if the problem is really the inadequacy of words. There is nothing in the context that suggests God told Paul to keep it a secret, and I would argue that the inadequacy of language only serves to heighten the very point that Paul is making: the ecstatic experience was so great, so far beyond human words, that a messenger from Satan was sent to keep him humble

I wouldn’t want to stake anything on this decision, but it is interesting to me and I would argue the more ambiguous “may” (ESV) is preferable to the interpretive “permitted.” What do you think?

Comments

Submitted by David Gibbons on Mon, 2013-04-22 05:13
I must admit, I have only rarely heard anyone (or read) that made the point that Paul was forbidden from speaking and have always taken this to mean that what he saw was beyond human ability to express. More recently in reading some of the Christian mystics I find a very similar thought expressed: They come to a point where language fails and it becomes, at the same time, impossible to speak but impossible to refrain from speaking.

Submitted by Poustman on Mon, 2013-04-22 11:25
Even in the English, there is an ambiguity in the words, 'permitted' and 'allowed', which are used by various translators. The ambiguity concerns the mechanism of not-permitting, or not-allowing: is that a mechanism based on volitional obedience to something that is able to be disobeyed, or a mechanism based on there being no ability to disobey? The ESV's "which man may not utter" is no farther ahead or behind: why 'may he not'-- is it due to having strict instruction not to, and he cannot go against his Lord and his conscience, or is it due to inability? My point is that all the words discussed above carry ambiguity. Is it legitimate to embrace the ambiguity rather than trying to solve it? Seems to me that if the Holy Spirit had intended to make it clearer, Paul would have used wording without the ambiguity, saying perhaps that he was unable rather than not permitted, for example. Paul elsewhere uses alalētois (Rom 8:26) for 'inexpressible'; he might well have done so here. Leaving us with the ambiguity allows us to at the same time consider the greatness of the experience being beyond human words _and_ the obedience of Paul in not trying to do the best he could to describe such a great experience because he was not given authorization.

Submitted by KG on Fri, 2013-07-19 09:59
"The ESV's "which man may not utter" is no farther ahead or behind" It seems to me that the ESV retains more of the ambiguity that you argue for since both "permitted" and "allowed" more strongly imply an external limitation whereas "may not" is less clear as to if it is an external or internal limitation. I agree that in these cases the translation is often better to retain the tension between the two options and allow the English reader to clearly see it.

Submitted by Jonathan rocha on Thu, 2018-02-08 16:23
I also know of a man whether in the body or out, he didn’t tell me, of an experience he had in paradise. But he remembers hearing words themselves that were inexpressible. Groanings of the Holy Spirit closest in affinity to angelic languages. That’s what I believe Paul heard